It seems like it depends on your goals. If you’re doing preservation rather than breeding, maybe you’d want to try and have all of your males represented.
For breeding, I’ve heard theories that the “natural state” of cannabis is to revert hemp. So the speculation is that early males preferentially contribute their genetics to the population, and drive this change.
Seems possible, but to me, that’s quite a leap. It could be true, but there’s so many other potential factors too. And I’m not even 100% that the premise is true either.
I wonder, since I was gifted two fem seeds of Big Nugs Fast, I did some reading about it. this is the description of the strain
Big Nugs Fast is a pretty self-explanatory name as it does exactly what it says on the tin! Big Nugs Fast is Critical Mass / Big Bud (Afghani x Skunk) crossed with an exceptionally fast-maturing male plant.
Based on some reports I found, there is a 6wk pheno in the mix.
How long do you leave the males in? I was initially thinking of having the males in the room for maybe the first three to four weeks of flower. It should be a ~70 day strain. I’ve had those terrible, immature seeds before in my plants and I hate them more than anything; I’d rather smoke pollen :-/
If I am taking a male out of the chamber, and putting it in to fully pollinate, maybe 3 days. Really all you need are a couple good shakes of the male. Once you see the browning pistils spray them with a spray bottle to lock down the loose pollen. I put a fan on them after spraying to be sure they dry.
There will still be pollen in the room this way.
Like a few have already recommended, my preference is to collect the pollen, dry it, and apply selectively with a paint brush although I have used the full pollination method on several occassions.
Wow, invaluable information. I feel much more confident about executing this now! I think this is going to be a fun hobby, breeding cannabis. I’m getting the mechanics down. Now I just need to figure out how to stabilize a line and select for traits while doing comprehensive, population based genetic selection instead of lazy 1:1 breeding while only being able to grow a dozen or so plants at a time… that sounds slightly difficult. Maybe I’m destined to be a pollen chucker
The best method would probably be to collect all the Male’s pollen, mix them in a container and chuck them on the females, that way every male gets a chance to pass down his genetics.
Another thing to consider. When you are collecting or pollinating. Turn off all fans including your vent fan.
I typically will move the females I am pollinating to a separate room. In my case a bathroom. I will pollinate the desired branches, and leave them in the bathroom for 24-48 hours. I just have a 250 Watt florescent bulb I use to keep them with some light for this period.
Once I meet the time, I will spray them down with water to lock down any pollen, and then run a fan on them for 3-4 hours to dry them before moving back under main area lights.
I definelty prefer to collect a bunch of pollen from the male and apply it all at the same time , it really helps reduces the amount of immature seeds. I also let everything with seed go as long as reasonably possible and find very few white ones,maybe 1 per 100, and that’s a maybe.
I was planning on letting these go until they almost die on the vine, or at least letting some of the plants do that. I’ve been very curious about that harvest method. I know/think they do it on some highland Colombians, or they used to? I’m sure it’s sub-optimal, but I’ve always wanted to smoke super, super, super mature bud.
Only down side to letting them go to long is the seeds might start to germinate inside the bud and crack there seal making them duds after they dry. I normally let them go a little longer then I would if harvesting for smoke. Best sighn is when they start to pop out of the nugs and fall out on there own but not all strains behave the same. Normally making seed is pretty easy but every once in awile nature will remind you who the boss is
I think flowering time has a lot to do with it. I have gotten a very high percentage of viable seeds from heavily pollinated females – if they are 11+ weeks. On the other hand, I’ve had a lot of difficulty getting very many viable seeds on 7 week plants, even with a low amount of pollination.
I think there’s a window. You need about 5 weeks of vital plant growth to produce mature seeds. If you are growing an 8-9 week strain, you still have a narrow window. The first 2-3 weeks of flower, the plant is not sexually mature enough to produce seeds. After week 4, it is already becoming too late. If you can successfully reveg the plant, I do not think you will not have any issues with maturing seeds, regardless of how heavily they are pollinated.
I believe in horticulture, the premature sprouting of seed before they leave the parent plant is a mutation. Nature is fun to explore. Usually seeds have to go through some stages before the switch to germinate will turn on. Such as simply drying to a certain point for a period before they will sprout when hydrated again. some need to experience a chill period (Winter stratification) before they will sprout, many temperate plants and trees. Or even have to get eaten and passed through an animal to remove the tough outer coating (scarification), then stratify through a winter, to be sprouted the next spring. like black/raspberries. American ginseng seeds need to go through two winters before they will sprout.
Found Something about “premature” sprouting lol.
It is typically caused by a mutation to the hormone abscisic acid that changes its pathways and prevents dormancy. It can also be caused by realy high humidity tricking the hormone into thinking it is the correct conditions. I’ve seen it happen on a few unrelated strains in doors and outdoors.
I recently tried to make seeds from some old Chocolate Rain beans. I usually make such a mess and pollinate everything and get way too many seeds. I was determined to do a clean, relatively small pollination. Everything was going great. I had collected pollen and waited for week 3 to pollinate. I did everything like you described but instead of waiting 1-2 days before spraying it down I only waited 30 minutes. I thought it was pretty instantaneous after pollen hits the pistil. Sadly it looks like it didn’t take. But I’m still hopeful it will have a couple beans at least.
